Mathew Jonson - fabric 84

Mathew Jonson - fabric 84
It's no coincidence that Mathew Jonson's fabric 84 hit the shops on Friday, October 16th, the weekend of the London club's 16th anniversary. The Canadian had played live at the same time the year before, delivering a 90-minute set so good that the team behind the club's coveted mix series decided to release it. (Fun fact: In line with the fabric birthday's fancy dress policy, Jonson performed wearing a full Japanese bunny suit.) Playing late on Sunday evening, he was slotted between Ben UFO and Ricardo Villalobos in Room One, just as the marathon bash was approaching the 24-hour mark. I wasn't there, but many who were have said it was the best part of the celebration.

This sets fabric 84 apart from the rest of the series. It's the only edition to have been recorded live in the club with an audience. Also, most of the other installments are studio mixes that try to balance capturing the experience of a fabric performance with something people will want to put on at home or in the car. Jonson's mix has already proven itself on the dance floor, so the question is whether it translates when taken out of the sweaty, sleep-deprived context. And for the most part, the answer is yes.

Jonson would've had no idea at the time that his set would end up as a CD, but that doesn't detract from the thought and effort put into its preparation. Most of the work for a live show happens before you hit the stage, and Jonson has said he goes the extra mile for fabric gigs. That comes across just through the tracklist, a heady blend of classics, special edits, remixes and unreleased material. Like Omar-S, Shackleton and Ricardo Villalobos before him, Jonson's mix consists entirely of his own productions, lending it a unique and unmistakable quality.

Confident that Ben UFO would sign off with a flurry of hard-hitting cuts, Jonson played "techno material first rather than play the funky tracks." Cobblestone Jazz's "Northern Lights" is the perfect opener: tough but measured, and with enough emotion packed into those trademark shimmers to signal a new direction. The funk creeps in on the next track, "Dayz," before the intense, trippy one-two punch of "Learning To Fly" and "Marionette" ramps up the energy several notches. Every time a new snare hits or a fresh melody bubbles to the surface, it's hard not to imagine Room One absolutely going off.

From there, it's easy to see why Jonson proved so popular with a horde of battered, leg-weary ravers. The mix has everything you want at that point in a party: transcendental synth lines ("In Search Of A New Planet With Oxygen"), gritty hooks ("Decompression") and most importantly after 20-plus hours of straight 4/4s, a few slamming breakbeats ("Imagination"). For the closing segment, Jonson shows off the more recent side of his oeuvre. It starts with the sultry vocals and UK garage-y feel of his remix of Subb-an's "Say No More" and ends with a techy take on Inner City's "Good Life." If the mix has a weak point, it's the five tracks in between. They're not bad or limp in any way, it's just that they don't quite deliver or stick in the memory like those in the first two-thirds.

As well as being a fantastic mix, fabric 84 marks a significant return to form for the acclaimed house and techno series. Editions 80 to 83—handled by Joseph Capriati, Matt Tolfrey, Art Department and Joris Voorn—have all fallen short of fabric's standards. Whether you were lucky enough to have witnessed Jonson's set first-hand, or, like me, have come to it 12 months later, the CD's effect is the same: it makes you wish you were in Room One, dancing to it live.

More on Mathew Jonson

Mathew Jonson really is one of a kind.
He's developed one of the most distinctive voices in electronic dance music: when you hear one of Jonson's tracks, you almost immediately know it's his. And yet there's no mistaking any given track for another.
His music offers a rare fusion of populist intensities and nuanced musicality. With a keen understanding for the needs of the dancefloor and the universal laws of house and techno, he's thrown out the rule book time and time again, sneaking tricks learned from electro and even drum'n'bass into minimal clubs, and loading up his B-sides with tracks that do what they damned well please. (No kick drum? No problem.)
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